Warwick

By Boby Beavers

A clown arrives in a small outback town in the Darling Downs region of southeast Queensland. The fact that no one knows anything about this clownwho the clown is or where the clown came fromraises no concern in the community of Warwick, where parents struggling with the ravages of drought and other hardships are only too pleased to see their children have moments of joy, being entertained by new and unusual experiences. Only one man questions the clowns credentials. What he ultimately uncovers goes beyond the natural concern a policeman has for his community when a statewide drug syndicate is found to be operating even in this remote community.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Feb 22, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524560928

Boby Beavers

Having previously published two fictional novels Boby has now decided it is time to present a collection of poems and short stories that he has written over many years. This is a product of a really undisciplined mind, hence there are a number of pieces that cant really be categorized so theyve ended up as other stuff. It may be noted that some other pieces dont really fit either. The author makes no apology for this because he firmly believes that it doesnt matter how things are categorized. It only matters that they have been created and now exist.

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 by Boby Beavers.

Library of Congress Control Number:      2017902819

ISBN:                  Hardcover                             978-1-5245-6094-2

                           Softcover                              978-1-5245-6093-5

                           eBook                                    978-1-5245-6092-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 02/20/2017

Xlibris

1-800-455-039

www.Xlibris.com.au

751991

39862.png

M orning again, like something new, though it never is—always the same, even when it adapts. The new creeps over the old and sits unnoticed, or someone will draw attention to it, and then the change is driven back. Warwick is a place where things adapt or they don’t last—old and new together or not at all.

Detective Willow has adapted.

The rickety fence is barely strong enough to hold his weight. The wooden beams are too dry and petrified to crack, and the joints stay connected only because there’s nowhere to go. One strong pull, and it would all come apart. The unconcerned wouldn’t be bothered. Willow isn’t bothered—focused, yes, focused like a bird of prey watching from a great height. That’s Willow, unseen, though in full view. No one would suspect that he’s doing anything other than sitting on the fence if they noticed him, which they won’t.

—Can you tell me why I’m standing here freezing my balls off, looking across at a paddock full of kids enjoying themselves on swings while their parents moan about how cold and dry it is?

Because Bradley knew where to look, he found the mysterious Willow, as one might when he’s been invited. By inference from his tone, Senior Constable Bradley wasn’t invited but ordered and isn’t happy about working on his day off.

—It’s always dry.

Willow takes too much for granted—there’s no recourse. When Willow wants, no one has the desire to offend. There are powers that override desires, ambitions that dictate. Sometimes there’s intrigue. This morning there’s just the fuzzy ambivalence of too many drinks the night before, and the detective doesn’t care.

—I know that. They know that. Jesus! Everyone fucking knows it’s dry!

The profanity rings in the dry, dusty air. The two men wait for another moment, another silence. Another car pulls up at the edge of the park. More kids fill the grassy paddock. More parents pass the time of day—talking of the weather, blowing on their hands to keep them warm, watching the kids join in the game, no help needed. Wind ruffles the kids’ hair, and there’s excitement in the rosy cheeks and laughter, always laughter.

—What time is it now?

No respite from the endless desire to know. Time passes too slowly when one’s attention is not focused—no need to know but the need itself, need in the empty bin of existence, trash spread over the welcome, and time to think about time.

—Twelve minutes past nine.

—How do you know that? You didn’t even look at your watch.

Willow doesn’t want to look at his watch, doesn’t want to know the time, doesn’t even care what day it is. It’s a holiday; that’s all that matters. It always happens on a holiday, like a magnet. Drawn by the need to perform, the thespian in the heart yearns, comes stalking from the shadows, entranced by the desire to be seen and heard, held still in the pantomime behind the costume, armed and defended, projected and adored.

—Watch out for it, Bradley. Keep your eyes peeled, and tell me when it happens.

Their attention is on the paddock and the children at play. There’s a chill in the air that’s more than the cold left over from a winter westerly. The sun has already dried the dew and started to warm the stiff, crackly, frost-dead grass. Jumpers will come off soon. Parents, the beasts of burden, will carry them back to the cars when a moment of peace descends in the turmoil of a morning strangely awakened.

—It would help a lot if I knew what I was looking for.

Sarcasm wasted, Bradley does what he’s told. He’s used to his boss expecting him to leap intuitively the way only Willow can—yet another lesson, one he can ill afford to let slip by. This stuff isn’t taught in college, isn’t written up in reports. It’s what makes Willow different.

—You’ll know it when it happens, Bradley. What I want you to tell me is when you first know it has happened and where it comes from. If you can tell me that, Senior Constable, you might even make sergeant one day.

—Fat chance. You’ve told me often enough I’ll never make sergeant, and with your cryptic clues it isn’t any wonder.

—Don’t despair, Bradley. Just keep your eyes focused on that paddock full of children and tell me when you see it.

Like on any other holiday, there are kids playing in the park, rousing cheers, boisterous song, colours of the rainbow, dancing around, time and the grandparents, honoured tradition. Not much has changed—until recently. Excitement tingles differently now due to this something added, this something no one knows. Except Willow. He knows. Only Willow would notice something has changed, adapted, and would question the something that no one else would seek to know.

Even Willow finds it difficult to pinpoint the change. He feels it, doesn’t see it. Whenever that creepy feeling surges, he seeks to know, to understand, not just what it is that’s different but also why it is different. Only then will the creepy feeling go away.

The children feel the difference now and start to sing a different song, anticipate, call a little nervously, ignore the parents, the bursting in their hearts set free, tingling in the air at last.

—There, Bradley. Did you see it?

Their eyes scan the field, searching every living and nonliving thing, and what do they see? Is it a normal morning? How can it be? Just the children and the parents, like every other normal holiday.

—It’s just a bunch of kids in the park crowding around a clown. What’s so special in that?

—When did the clown get here, Bradley? Where did the clown come from?

So neatly disposed, so easily cast aside. A pointy floral cap bent over at the top, a little gold bell dangling, two rosy cheeks on a pasty white face with a bright-red nose, whiter-than-white lips, and two secret little blue eyes coming from inside a mask, seen but not seen—a face that only a clown would know, a face to match a costume as colourful as the hanky hanging from the clown’s pocket. The padding of the costume hides the true figure, right down to the bright-red shoes with the little gold bells at the curled-up toes, just slippers really. They slide silently on any surface—night creatures, whisper-soft, never a trail, never a sound. The clown has no voice.

—I don’t know. He’s just a clown; he’s always here on holidays and lots of other times as well.

—Not always, Senior Constable. The clown wasn’t always here.

The first tickling sensation of the day slithers silently up Bradley’s spine, and he doesn’t like it. He knows he’s missing something. Willow won’t let on. He wants Bradley to ferret it out for himself—fat chance. At one time or another Detective Willow has stretched the tolerance of every colleague he’s ever worked with. This seems a stretch too far, too far for a sore head on a day off. Anger, barely enough, manages to push down the creepy sensation for a moment at least.

—Well, obviously not. He’d be over two hundred years old if he’d always been here. What does it matter when he got here? The kids love him. Isn’t that what matters?

—Did you see the clown arrive? Today did you see the clown arrive?

Lesson failed—no time to regroup, no exculpation, no exoneration, no pardon, just the remorselessness of failure that only Willow can mete out with his pedantic demands for duty beyond and duty dedicated. It’s another lesson Bradley will get the hang of eventually, even if it’s too late to please Willow.

—No! The clown’s here, though. Isn’t that what matters? He’s here for the kids.

—Perhaps. But no one sees the clown arrive, and no one sees the clown leave. That’s not a mystery we can tolerate.

Kids gather around, and parents stand back and keep watch. The clown does a dance and pulls a hanky from a girl’s pocket, a hanky she didn’t know she had. Then it disappears just as quickly, poof, into thin air. The children laugh, and always the clown has a sad face to mock their joy. Then from a pocket no one has noticed, the clown pulls out three coloured balls. They try to follow the colours as the balls are juggled. First red, then green, then blue. Their hearts are aflutter, beating with joy. They call for a colour, and so it emerges—distraction. Juggling with one hand, the clown suddenly makes another hanky appear from another child’s pocket. Bewildered, a little boy grins. He’s never had a hanky that colourful, and they laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh. Each and every child receives a special touch, a special joy, laughing at the happy, laughing at the sad, never noticing the eyes blue and watching. Only Willow sees the eyes—disconnected, more than sadness for a sad face, eyes watching eyes—and he wonders. He sees a hint of fear in those eyes.

—It’s just a clown, for God’s sake. Why should anyone care where a clown comes from or why he’s here? Stop being so picky, and let the kids have their fun.

—The kids can have all the fun they want. On a day like today, there’s no better way to spend the time, but it won’t always be like that, Bradley. One day it won’t end well.

—Well, I’m too tired to argue. I’m going to get a coffee. If you want one, come along, or else you can sit here on the fence and wait for it to happen, whatever it is.

Frustration complete, Bradley wanders away towards the only coffee shop that will be open on a holiday. Willow hardly notices Bradley go as he watches the kids and the clown and watches the clown watching him. He wonders why there is fear in the sad eyes, in the sad face that makes the children laugh so much.

Willow doesn’t look like a policeman—never has, never will—but that wouldn’t prevent the clown from knowing. It’s a small town, and everyone knows everyone else. Recognition is not what matters. The little trace of fear has Willow rattled. And a clown should still have a home. Like magic, the clown appears. No one organizes it. The clown appears because that’s what clowns do. That doesn’t sit right. Performers need a stage, a manager, a past—an identity. Even Warwick demands more.

The clown is not new to Warwick. Several years have elapsed since the first time the clown joined the children in play, showed them tricks and juggled with sticks, made them laugh, and made them follow, bringing the parents along, who were happy to see the children laugh. Who would not want the children to laugh? That idea defies logic, and so the fun perpetuates. Without the desire to critique, the town is at peace—no questions asked, none allowed, none expected.

There are secrets here—times and places, details, details that don’t fit. These are the things that haunt Willow. In a place where there is often not much to do, Willow is always busy, always to be found pondering some mystery that no one else would be bothered with. This is the nature of the man—sometimes ignored, sometimes passed off as having stood in the sun too long, driven a touch insane, because that’s what places like Warwick do to people like Willow, people who are too intense, too focused, too determined. The results defy the logic, though. It’s unnatural. Willow solves crimes that aren’t thought to exist. He’s untouchable, the bane of any supervisor’s life—talent versus idiosyncrasy, a survivor.

For a long time Willow watches, alone, unseen. The clown does another card trick, prompting lots of laughter and a round of applause, and just as suddenly the cards disappear. The smallest child is invited to sit on the clown’s knee and then invited to retrieve a spotted hanky from her own pocket. She laughs in delight and neatly places the hanky into the clown’s pocket, where she thinks it should belong. She laughs, but the clown does not laugh. The clown invites the child to honk the big red nose and the child is immediately smothered in squirting tears from the clown’s big sad eyes. The children laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh, never once concerned that the clown never laughs. A clown is not supposed to laugh or cry or speak. The clown is just for fun—honk the nose, hear the barp, watch the tears squirt. There’s never a word, a real tear, or a spoken word. Bathed in the safety that a clown would never harm a child, the watchful parents feel confident, satisfied, safe. A clown would never harm a child.

The sun’s competing warmth spreads, and at last the chill wind of the wintery night is blown away, and Willow watches no more, having seen what he wants to see. The clown has led the merry troop out of the park, dancing them off through the town—away to gather more fun, more laughter. The park sits empty and lonely. Only the concerned thoughts of a mysterious detective are left to haunt the empty space. Patience alone shall solve the riddle, and the riddle alone shall tax the patience.

Willow follows a crackly path on grass devoid of moisture. The trail is brown and broken underfoot until he reaches a dusty track that leads away towards the edge of the park. He passes through the gap in the fence and walks across the street towards the main part of the town three blocks away. An abandoned shop marks the corner to the main street. Its emptiness is a mark of the harsh times that sometimes stretch for seasons and beyond, either making or breaking people, mostly breaking. The door of the lonely, empty store is not locked, making it a haven for kids to play in. Willow makes a mental note to get it neat and tidy, with things not out of place, and locked and secure—one less place for the kids to get into trouble.

—Hello, Frank.

Willow’s mind is drawn back. Feelings of friendship cloak him. The part of Warwick he enjoys the most is calling his name—in name alone—the facadethat hides the institution.

—How are you, Mrs. Tait?

There is something shading a collective imagination. It will impose, not interfere, give of the giving.

—I’m fine. When are you going to stop those hooligans riding their bikes up and down the footpath?

—And what hooligans would that be?

—The ones who ride up and down my footpath every afternoon.

Not to be trifled with, Mrs. Tait will have her way. The hooligans she speaks of are just the boys and girls from the local school, doing odd jobs, no doubt. Mrs. Tait expects all things to be done properly. She’s a retired schoolteacher and must be ninety. She is still giving the kids hell if she can. Now the expectation falls on younger shoulders. She will have her way and she will be appeased. Willow can’t grapple with the might.

—Just kids being kids, Mrs. Tait. I’ll have a word with them.

—Lock them up for an hour or two. Give them a proper lesson.

—Oh, I couldn’t do that, Mrs. Tait. It wouldn’t be legal.

—No, I suppose not, but they do need to be kept under control. And what about William? How is he doing? I don’t want his father coming home and beating him and his mother again.

She’s feisty as hell but still looks after the vulnerable. The fabric of the town will change when she’s gone. Maybe she’ll live forever—a terrifying thought. Most of the kids would leave town in protest. It doesn’t look as if she’ll ever croak it, though. Some will shed a tear. Billy might or might not. His mother certainly will, but it could go either way for Billy—not for want of Mrs. Tait’s care, though. She’s terrifying but loves deeply, a terrifying love, heart and soul, never halfway, boots and all, make or break. That’s Mrs. Tait.

—Next few years are critical, I guess. His father’s been sent to a prison up north and won’t be released until after Billy is through high school, at least.

—Yes, well, we don’t want that boy getting hooked on ice.

—I watch them all, Mrs. Tait, and I wish I could save just half of them.

—I know, Frank. We can only do our best, though. We can only do our best.

Willow steps aside and lets her pass. She’s said her piece, and now she’s off to spread her opinion elsewhere.

—Good day to you then, Mrs. Tait.

—Good day.

She’s off to see to the flowers for the church service tonight, no doubt. If only there were more Mrs. Taits. Towns scarred and ravaged by drought need them, need the strength. The Mrs. Taits of the world bring such towns alive for the good times that never last, each recovery just a respite for the next downturn. A few bedraggled veterans linger on, keep the place what it is.

Willow continues along patchy, broken concrete, passing empty blocks. A shop selling little kids’ clothes is still in business. Barometer—still hope. Kids are hope, one last sign of all hanging on.

Age and the woman—how can it be? So switched on to a drug like ice, new age, the province of the young while the rest look on, mystified and unable to connect. But Mrs. Tait, as if undaunted and undefeated, looks on ready to pounce. Like the sly old fox, she misses nothing—Miss Nothing. That’s not what the kids call her—don’t go there. Grey-haired old ladies don’t deserve to be called that, even if they deserve it. That’s the rough justice in the world of children with emerging moral aptitude. They’ll grow out of it, Willow supposes.

Some older boys are gathered near the coffee shop. Billy is not among them. Sad day for Mrs. Tait if Billy were to take drugs of any sort. Hard to see the blame if he did, though, poor bastard. His father has been in and out of his life, and his father being in jail now is the best outcome for him. Billy’s father was born violent, probably had